Studies on Nanostructured Nickel Thin Film Coatings Deposited using Pulsed DC Magnetron Sputtering Process

Abstract

The purpose of this research work is to investigate the mechanical properties of nickel thin film. The nickel thin films were coated on glass substrate using pulse PDC power supply magnetron sputtering process in argon atmosphere. The effect of substrate temperature, effect of duty cycle and mechanical properties of nickel thinfilms has been presented in this paper. Coating deposited with substrate temperature at 250°C, had lower surface roughness (Ra<3 nm) compared to the coating deposited with substrate temperatures at 25~45°C (RT). When the substrate was maintained at 250°C during sputter deposition of 4N purity nickel, as a result the coating had a hardness of 5 GPa using PDC power supply, while that of pure nickel deposited at RT had a hardness of 3.5 GPa. Hardness of the nickel thin films with variable duty cycle is 3-4Gpa.